


Prelude to the End of the World

by Ninkasa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 03:38:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninkasa/pseuds/Ninkasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas and Anna spend their last day on Earth together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prelude to the End of the World

The world ended on a Saturday.

And in the end, they couldn’t stop it. 

They tried. Really they did. 

There was just no other way around it.

So, while Sam and Dean worked out millennia of issues in a field in Lawrence, Kansas, the two angels -- well, one angel and one human -- stood on the roof of a high rise in St. Louis however many thousand miles away.

They stood in silence for a long moment and then Anna turned, red hair whipping in the wind around her face, hunched down in a jean jacket and blue jeans that in the current light of the sunrise looked more black than blue. She stared at him for a moment and then held out her hand.

“Last day on Earth,” she said after the moment had passed. “We might as well make the most of it.”

Castiel stared at her for a moment, then his mouth quirked up in a half smile and he took her hand in his.

“Lead the way.”

She grinned at him and suddenly they were on a busy street in London. She tugged him forward into a little shop where it smelled of ice cream and cake and she turned back to him once, smiling slightly.

“I figure even Tadfield would be safer than Kansas right now.”

He noticed that the girl behind the counter raised an eyebrow and smiled at this, but as he didn’t think she had any idea what Anna was talking about anymore than he did, he ignored it.

Anna leaned forward onto the counter to peer in at the ice cream and pies (something in Cas’s chest hurt at that) and then she leaned back to look at the girl behind the counter.

“We’ll take two of each.”

It occurred to them midway through the second piece of raspberry pie that neither of them actually had any money to pay for the pie.

Not that it mattered as by the end of the day, this pie shop probably wouldn’t even be standing.

Cas frowned for a moment and then his hand closed around something in his pocket.

He pulled his hand out to find the credit card Dean had had Bobby send him when they went after Pestilence in his hand.

Anna stopped making slurping noises in her soda glass and stared at the object in his hand. “That’s not really a safe place for that,” she said.

Castiel shrugged his shoulders at this. “It was in my pocket with my cell phone,” he said. “I think Dean --”

He stopped at that and for a moment they both sat in silence.

Anna opened her mouth to say something -- anything. When suddenly the girl who had been at the counter turned from the window.

“It’s snowing,” she said. Her voice sounded excited.

Then it seemed realisation sank in.

“It’s snowing in May,” she said, turning to look at the two sitting at the table behind her. “That’s not normal.”

Anna took once last bite of pie and shook her head. “No. No, it’s not.”

They walked out into the street and Castiel held his hand out to let the snow fall on his hand.

He sighed. “It’s not snow. It’s ash.”

Anna looked up at the sky, which had turned dark with clouds, wind whipping Castiel’s coat around them and making it impossible to see through her hair. 

“It’s burning.”

Anna’s fingers reached out to touch Castiel’s forehead and they were standing in the middle of what looked like the Colliseum. There are hailstones falling as they climb up the ruins to stand at the top, choosing to walk, to enjoy the sensation.

It crossed her mind then to wonder who won, who was winning.

But she didn’t voice it. She suspected he was wondering the same thing and it hurt to think that after everything this is what it’s coming to. 

She didn’t think the sun’s going to shine out any clearer when all was said and done. All she could think at that moment is that everything she loved was being burned away and she worried about Sam and about Dean, trapped inside their own bodies with the awful hatred that Anna and Castiel’s siblings hold for each other.

She wondered if Michael could really kill Lucifer anymore than Dean could ever have killed Sam.

She wondered if they’ll ever see either set of brothers again.

Castiel turned to her slowly. “The earthquakes will be next,” he said after a moment. He paused. “I hope the Impala isn’t being damaged too badly by the hail.”

Anna smiled at this. “I’m sure Dean parked her somewhere safe,” she said after a moment.

They stood in silence watching fires raging throughout Rome, and Anna hoped that at least some of the people down there would be spared. Not just the righteous or whatever the criteria was, but some of the people who are basically good. 

The way Sam was always basically good. She hoped her father -- wherever he was -- thinks of that. That he thinks of the children playing space aliens in a rock quarry. That he thinks of all those people who tried their hardest to do the best they could even though they were too small to really make any difference.

She turned to look at Castiel then, human and so fragile now. She could see the years he had got left stretching out in front of her and something in her chest constricted then.

Sometimes you only did the best you could with whatever you had.

Sometimes you had to try your hardest even if you couldn’t really make a difference.

She leaned up against Castiel then as his arm slipped around her shoulders into a tight hug.

Anna pulled back slightly to look clearly at him.

“I’m glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee. Here at the end of all things.”

He stopped staring at the city below them to give her a puzzled look.

“We’re not hobbits, Anna.”

Anna laughed aloud at this.

“I didn’t know you’d seen that.”

Castiel smiled back at her. “Yes. Rather against my will, but yes.”

He paused for a moment.

“But for what it’s worth. I’m glad to be with you as well.”


End file.
